Oscar Week: The Best Best Actresses

It's likely that the Oscar has gone to the wrong performance in the Best Actress category more times than it has for Best Actor. You won't find Bette Davis here for All About Eve, or Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard; they were both beaten by Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. There's no Shirley Maclaine for The Apartment, no Sigourney Weaver for either good Alien performance, no Angela Bassett for What's Love Got to Do With It?, no Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth, and no Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Just think of how different this list would look only counting those oversights. But here are our rankings of the best performances to ever win Best Actress. Debate away... 1 - Meryl Streep - Sophie's Choice (1981) I'll make this really simple. There has never been a better female actor in film than Meryl Streep. Making the argument against it is like saying Magic Johnson was better than Michael Jordan. There are certainly some great actresses, now more than ever, perhaps, but when you look at the breadth and the depth of her career, there's very little doubt that could possibly exist. Blanchett and maybe Winslet could give her a run over the course of their careers, but there's a reason Meryl has more Oscar nominations than any other actor, male or female. She's nominated again this year, extending her own record, and I think it's also the best performance of the five. As for Sophie's Choice, well, if you haven't ever seen it, acting doesn't get a whole lot better. When it's the best performance by the most talented performer on the list, it kind of has to wind up here, right? Other nominees: Julie Andrews (Victor/Victoria), Jessica Lange (Frances), Sissy Spacek (Missing), Debra Winger (An Officer and a Gentleman) 2 - Vivian Leigh - A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) You know what? This woman was underrated. If she wasn't being derided as an actress because of her beauty, than she was left hampered by a lifetime of mental and physical illnesses that no doubt made us miss out on even more breathtaking work. This is not Leigh's best known work, although in concert with Scarlett O'Hara, people might actually forget she's British. Her Blanche DuBois is the anti-Scarlett: Frail, desperate, sad. It's absolutely lights out, and it's not overshadowed by Brando's Stanley, which is a hard fate to avoid. Other nominees: Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen), Eleanor Parker (Detective Story), Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun), Jane Wyman (The Blue Veil) 3 - Elizabeth Taylor - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Taylor would probably be on the Worst Best Actress list, too, for Butterfield 8, but just a few years later, she incinerated the screen with her unconscious portrayal of the savage and drunken Martha, opposite her on-again-off-again husband Richard Burton's George. And, oh, how times have changed: Former MPAA head Jack Valenti said this was the first controversial film he ever had to deal with. At issue was the word "screw" and the phrase "hump the hostess." Only "hump the hostess" was allowed to stay in the film. Other nominees: Anouk Aimée (A Man and a Woman), Ida Kaminska (The Shop on Main Street), Lynn Redgrave (Georgy Girl), Vanessa Redgrave (Morgan!) 4 - Katharine Hepburn - The Lion in Winter (1968) She is probably overvalued a little bit historically, but there were probably at least four times that Hepburn was the best actress in a given year, so her four Oscars even out. Maybe not On Golden Pond, but still. This one is significant because she tied with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl, and people tend to remember that inferior performance to this one, with Hepburn stalking the castle as Eleanor of Aquitaine to O'Toole's Henry. That's a pretty good head-to-head, as you can imagine. Other nominees: Patricia Neal (), Vanessa Redgrave (Isadora), Joanne Woodward (Rachel, Rachel), Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl, co-winner) 5 - Frances McDormand - Fargo (1996) Released very early in 1996, Fargo was going to win at least one Oscar for most of the year, and everybody knew it. It still got robbed out of Best Picture (The English Patient) and Best Supporting Actor (Cuba Gooding over Wiliam H. Macy?), but the crowning glory of this film is Marge Gunderson, who instantly gained admittance into the pantheon of great movie characters. Also, there has never been a Best Actress winner with more memorable quotes, for whatever that's worth. Other nominees: Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies), Diane Keaton (Marvin's Room), Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient), Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) 6 - Diane Keaton - Annie Hall (1977) Comedy, perhaps by its nature, doesn't tend to hold up very well. The goal is to laugh at an exact thing at an exact moment, which is why nobody does slapstick successfully anymore. The classics never age, though, whether it's a book, a song, or a movie, and Woody Allen's Annie Hall is the quintessential smart romantic comedy. It's been said that Keaton is essentially playing herself here; she dated Allen before the film was made, and her real name is Diane Hall. And while I see the evidence of some of the great Carole Lombard in her work, it's still a great creation, one that rom-coms have tried in vain to recreate for 30 years. Other nominees: Anne Bancroft (The Turning Point), Jane Fonda (Julia), Shirley MacLaine (The Turning Point), Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl) 7 - Charlize Theron - Monster (2003) Though she has been good a couple times since Monster, there was nothing at all in Charlize Theron's previous work that would indicate a great performance, and certainly not a performance as raw, determined, and broken as Aileen Wuornos in Monster. Said Roger Ebert of her work, "There's the uncanny sensation that Theron has forgotten the camera and the script and is directly channeling her ideas about Aileen Wuornos. She has made herself the instrument of this character." That's about all you need to say, I guess Other nominees: Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), Diane Keaton (Something's Gotta Give), Samantha Morton (In America), Naomi Watts (21 Grams) 8 - Vivian Leigh - Gone With the Wind (1939) Certainly one of the most iconic performances ever committed to celluloid, Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara is still idolized 70 years later. Much of the achievements of the film have been erased from public awareness by just how big this movie is. Leigh's performance is the best thing about it, too, despite Clark Gable's famous line. Other nominees: Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Irene Dunne (Love Affair), Greta Garbo (Ninotchka), Greer Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) 9 - Sissy Spacek - Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) The musical bio-pic has been with us for decades, and while Jamie Foxx did a pretty damned amazing Ray Charles, Sissy Spacek's Loretta Lynn is right there with it, only Spacek actually sings. The remarkable thing about her performance, to me, has always been that Spacek plays Loretta in her teens (she wed at age 13) all the way through her big successes as a woman in her 30s. She's tremendous and effortless. Other nominees: Ellen Burstyn (Resurrection), Goldie Hawn (Private Benjamin), Mary Tyler Moore (Ordinary People), Gena Rowlands (Gloria) 10 - Hilary Swank - Boys Don't Cry (1999) It's safe to say that Swank was nobody's idea of an Oscar winner before this film. And it's just as safe to say that without her, there's very little chance the movie would've received the acclaim it did. Playing someone as confused about everything as Brandon Teena has to show up in every frame of every scene, or the illusion is gone, not just for us but for the other characters in the scene. Other nominees: Annette Bening (American Beauty), Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds), Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair), Meryl Streep (Music of the Heart)

Comments

[Zak]

No Doubt.

Streep in Sophie's Choice, in my opinion, is the greatest single performance by any actor, male or female in the history of film.

She should be a 6 time Academy Award winner instead of a 2-time winner (sadly, I think she'll lose on Sunday, but I have hope for an upset)

[D]

As trendy as it is now a days to reward pretty people for playing a (I'll phrase this as nicely as possible) "less than pretty person" (Ledger will do it this year), I'm not sure I can remember any performer being as unrecognizable as Theron in Monster. Looking at the picture in the article it's still hard for me to believe that is actually one of the most beautiful women in the world. Of course the fact Theron turned in a great performance certainly helps sell the illusion.

[knives]

Looking at the list for best actresses, I have to agree with you here. Not many others were the right choice.

[susan]

Elizabeth Taylor was so good in Who's Afraid..., it was actually hard to watch. Her character is so unlikeable in every way. I barely made it through that one. I felt like a child trapped in a room with abusive parents.

No one holds a candle to Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice though. She's spectacular in everything (even Mamma Mia - come on!), but this one is perfection.

[Zack Solomon]

I hate vivian Leigh with a passion. I think she is so unrealistically melodramatic. Gone with the wind is not a good film, except for Clark Gable, A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the many over-rated Tennessee Williams plays, scratch that, all his plays are over-rated. Vivian Leigh should not be on this list. Streep in Sophies Choice is the obvious choice ofr number 1 with Liz Taylor in a close second. in 1974, Gena Rowlands should have won an oscar for A Woman Under The Influence and that would be in my top 3 of all time leading woman performances. Everything on this list is great besides Vivian Leigh. Annie Hall is one of my five favorite films of all time, so I won't argue with that. Frances McDormand is really great in Fargo, but I personally think Emily Watson should have won that oscar for Breaking The waves, which would be in my top five. Oh, How about Bette Davis in All About Eve,

[Zack Solomon]

Oh, a couple other of possible additions: Anne Bancroft for The Miracle Worker, Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby, and I'm forgetting more

[Get The Big Picture]

I mentioned Bette Davis in the intro. All About Eve is probably the most consistently underrated film of that entire decade. Easily - easily - some of the best movie dialogue ever crafted. I watched it again maybe 18 months ago and was amazed at how well it still holds up. You don't even have to make concessions for it being 60 years old. It's just fantastic.

[bulldozer]

ah, no one can beat Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. it was made for her and cutout for her.